Westborough State Hospital – From Reform School To Asylum
The campus beside Chauncy Lake looked peaceful when it began, long before it was called Westborough State Hospital. In 1848, the land held the State Reform School for Boys, a cluster of brick dormitories and workshops that trained its residents in trades.
By 1884, the same grounds were reassigned by state law for an entirely different mission. The new Westborough Insane Hospital opened on December 1, 1886, using remodeled reform school buildings to treat mental illness through homeopathic medicine.
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